


One For The Road

by Selden



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Explosions, F/F, Moderate drinking, terrible chat-up lines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 07:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13608378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selden/pseuds/Selden
Summary: A admiral and a senator walk into a bar...





	One For The Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ScarletCorvid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletCorvid/gifts).



“You always take me to the nicest places.”

If she’d been with Han, it would have been irony: sometimes it seemed as if he had fundamental philosophical objections to any bar without a sticky floor. But tonight, Leia is with Amilyn, so – this time round, at least – it _is_ a nice place.

Elegant Qovari architecture in the Seventh Court style, the dark woods inlaid with flickering lengths of Tangi shell; tall lemon-coloured stands of Arthanian bubble-plants growing here and there for light. Every so often, a flight of glowing yellow bubbles will break loose and float gently up towards the ceiling, where they shine soft and dim like clutches of pearls.

Of course, the group of Imperial revanchists by the bar lowers the tone a little.

“Looks as though your intel was on the money,” Leia says.

“Naturally.” Next to her, Amilyn is tall and serene in swoops of pale green synth-silk, a circlet of soft grey milkstones in her hair. She’s dressed to match the décor, of course. Leia, who strictly speaking isn’t here at all – as far as the Senate knows, she’s attending a trade conference two systems over -  has done the best she could at short notice: an indigo tunic stiff with embroidery in bronze; loose trousers in dark grey sarnth-weave. A holoveil over her face, so that there’s no chance of anyone recognising Senator Organa. Her hair is coiled around her head, its ordinary weight a comfort as she watches the men over by the bar raise up their glasses in a toast.

“To the lost and glorious past!” says one of them, a tall man with a crumpled face, whose neat dark clothes are cut almost exactly like an Imperial corporal’s uniform.

“And the more glorious future!” the other men reply.

Leia rolls her eyes. “Shall we go for the Naboo gambit? Create a scene and have local law-enforcement shake them down? Half of them look as if they’d crack after a night in a cell, and there’s no way none of them are carrying anything incriminating. They’ve probably got imperial insignia on their underwear.”

“What a memorable image, Leia.”

“Yeah. Sorry about that." Leia shrugs. "So, is there a reason we’re playing this cool?”

“Well, Mr Shiny Suit there on the left _is_ local law-enforcement. That’s a planetary Councillor to his left, and a power-player in the local small-arms trade propping up the bar. And our Corporal Toast-Giver owns this bar, and fifty others like it, planet-wide. These are big-wigs, Leia. Big-wigs in a smallish pond, but big-wigs all the same.” Amilyn pauses, considering. “Big-wigs,” she says again, with evident satisfaction. “There’s something _actually_ glorious about a properly silly word, isn’t there?”

“By now it doesn’t sound like a word at all.” Leia sighs. “I see why you wanted me to come in person,” she says.

“No shit.” For a moment, Amilyn is all business, sizing the group by the bar up like so many enemy warships. Then she smooths out her robes, and gives Leia a dazzling smile. “So,” she says. “I take it you’d like your usual?”

Leia grins herself, and shakes her head. “Not tonight,” she says. “Surprise me.”

 

\--

 

“And here was I thinking you’d never stop drinking that rotgut Han got you hooked on.”

Amilyn has come back from the bar, carrying two smoking goblets of Carinian ice-wine. She’d fluttered her way artistically right through the centre of the group by the bar, and now she flicks a switch on her bracelet. Suddenly, the voices of the Imperial sympathisers are perfectly audible, fed straight to Leia’s earpiece.

“Left the bug on Mr Shiny Suit,” Amilyn explains. “He seems to be the life and soul of the party.”

“Not bad,” Leia admits.

At the moment, though, the group is deep into a discussion of the latest fathier race. She makes a face, and takes a sip of wine. It burns going down, cold as a mountain stream and faintly sweet, as if the stream was running over sugar rocks, through fields of wiry, herbal mountain flowers. Luke had known a song like that once: something about a land of sugar, far away. The kind of thing they’d sang on Tatooine, he’d said. Perhaps he’s teaching it, right now, to Ben.

Leia snorts, and shakes her head. She’s getting maudlin. The chances of Luke getting a bolshy teenager to listen to his folk songs are what you might call slim, at best. Probably just as well: she doesn’t like to remember Ben’s first earnest efforts on the Corrilian flute.

“So.” Amilyn is leaning back in her chair, looking Leia up and down. It’s a long, slow look, and Leia feels herself flush. Amilyn’s got full access past her holoveil, retinal-keyed. She can see her whole face. She can see _everything_.  “You’re in the mood for something new, Senator?”

“You can say that again, Vice-Admiral.” Leia takes another sip of wine. “He’s gone for good, this time. Nothing was the same, after I sent Ben away. We didn’t fit together, not the way we did before.”

“Hmm. Ben’s training is going well?”

“As far as I can gather. Luke says he’s never seen such strength.

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“I’m not.” Leia bows her head. “Force help me, Amilyn, but I’m not.” It’s a while before she realises Amilyn is touching her hand where it lies on the table, her grip warm and sure. “I want great things from him,” she tries to explain. “I’m proud, of course. But –”

“But.” Amilyn tightens her hold, for an instance, then pulls her hand back. “You’re afraid you see a family resemblance.”

Leia nods. “He’s got a temper, you know,” she says.

“I can’t _imagine_ where he gets that from.”

Leia smiles despite herself. “Well, _I_ can’t imagine his grandfather was ever the kind of teenager who demanded a Corrilian flute for his thirteenth life-day,” she admits. “Much less a calligraphy set.”

“Can’t you?” Amilyn sets her glass down, and looks Leia in the eye. “You’re going to have to tell him at some point, you know,” she says. “The boy needs to know who his grandfather was.”

“I know. I just want him to have one more year. One more year without that weight.”

Amilyn inclines her head. “You know,” she says, “I still have all those old holos I had reconstructed. There’s a lot in there about your father, one way or another.” She reaches one hand out towards Leia again, then seems to think better of it. “I’m just saying,” she says. “If you ever want to get drunk on Han’s filthy rotgut and spend a day watching through them in my quarters, I really think –”

“You think it would be good for me,” Leia says flatly. She’s being unfair, she knows it. But she can’t stop herself. “I’ll take it under consideration.”

“Spoken like a true big-wig.”

“Ouch.” Leia looks up at Amilyn. In the low light of the bar she’s more beautiful than ever, all the angles that had made her gawky as a teenager smoothed out, refined. She looks like she’s designed for flight, like some swift recon ship from long-ago on Alderaan. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

“Would it help,” Leia offers, “if I said that I was just seriously considering how much you looked like a spaceship? One of those really elegant ones, with sleek long lines. For sliding in under enemy sensors, you know.”

“Well,” says Amilyn thoughtfully, “that’s not a line which would work on many girls.”

“Is it working on you?” Leia tries for something like a rueful grin. “I haven’t done this for a while, you understand.”

Amilyn smiles back. “I’ll take it under consideration,” she says peaceably. But, underneath the table, one of her long legs stretches out, and rubs up against Leia’s calf, deliberate and slow.

 

\--

 

It is at this moment that one of the would-be Imperialists starts walking towards them. It’s the tall worn-looking one; the proprietor.

Amilyn shifts her stance slightly, without taking her foot away from Leia’s leg. They’d had to check their weapons at the door – at least, Leia had; Amilyn had been apparently unarmed – but she’s seen Amilyn kill a would-be assassin with their own blaster.

Still. “Don’t worry, I’ve got this,” she whispers at Amilyn. The proprietor is heading towards her side of the table, after all.

Amilyn rolls her eyes, just a little, and relaxes. She strokes her foot once more up Leia’s calf, before it withdraws, and she takes a demure sip of her wine.

For a moment, Leia feels ridiculously bereft. And then angry. Here she is, with this strange, thrilling thing building between herself and one of her oldest friends, hanging in the air between them like a thunderstorm about to break, and she has to waste her time dealing with the acolytes of a dead empire.

When the proprietor reaches their table, she is particularly polite. Her hands move in the most elaborate form of the local greeting she can muster, and she bows her head. “Greetings, honoured sir,” she murmurs. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

The proprietor rubs the back of his head and chuckles, a little bashfully. Authority drops away from him like smoke; not a bad trick, she supposes, for someone who needs to please rich customers. He’s not bad; Leia could almost take him for a provincial schoolmaster, awed by her fine clothes and the quiet wealth of the bar.

“Oh, please,” he says. “There’s no need for that, no need at all. My name is Brant Abasos, and as it happens this bar is – well, my own little concern, you might say.”

“It’s a beautiful place,” says Leia.

“Thank you.” Abasos leans closer, looking earnestly down at her. “To be honest,” he says, “I was hoping you would do us the honour of showing us your beautiful face, honoured lady. Some of my friends are most eager to know who could be accompanying the renowned admiral Holdo.” The mockery in his voice is scarcely audible. He bows towards Amilyn, and resumes. “Of course, if it’s a matter of custom or belief –”

“Merely personal preference.” Leia keeps her voice steady, light. Amilyn’s face isn’t particularly well known, but her political sympathies are. Perhaps these goons are sharper than they’d thought.

Amilyn draws herself up and opens her mouth, but Leia raises a hand.

“Of course,” she says pleasantly, “I have no objection.” Making sure that Abasos is blocking her from view by his cronies, she cancels her holoveil.

His eyes widen. “Senator Organa,” he breathes. His eyes grow calculating; his voice sharpens. “You know, Senator,” he says, “I’ve recently come into some remarkably interesting material about your past. About your father.”

For a moment, Leia feels nothing but horror. If her true parentage gets out, her political career is dust. And Ben will hear the truth from some Holonet broadcast, not from her. She clenches her fists. “Oh?” she says. “Where do you keep this information, Brant Abasos? And where did you acquire it?”

“In this bar’s secure network,” Abasos answers promptly. “And I pieced it together from a collection of old holodisks. Or at least, enough clues to be going on with.” He pauses, looking shaken. “I didn’t mean to say that,” he says softly. “But, then, I notice you’re not denying anything, Senator. I think we’re about to have a very interesting conversation indeed.”

“Really?” Leia feels a smile stretch across her face. It isn’t one of her nicer ones. “I think you’ll find that now your curiosity is satisfied, my identity is of no concern of yours. You can’t even remember who I am, much less anything about my parentage. And,” she adds, “you’ll return to your friends and start talking about any plans you may have to revive the Empire.”

Abasos blinks. “Excuse me?”

Leia puts some more effort into it. “My identity is of no concern of yours. You can’t even remember who I am, much less anything about my parentage. You’ll return to your friends and start talking about any plans you may have to revive the Empire.”

This time it takes. Abasos stares glassily and repeats her word for word, before turning on his heel.

Leia sighs and flicks her veil back on.

“Convenient,” Amilyn says. “And impressive.”

Leia shakes her head. “Not hugely,” she says. “I try to avoid doing it, to be honest.”

“Why?” Amilyn leans forward. “I could feel the power from here, you know. It was beautiful. You were beautiful.”

Leia shoots her a half-smile. “Because,” she says, “I enjoy it too much.”

 

\--

 

They wait until Abasos re-joins the group by the bar. His voice drifts back to them, dismissive and light.

“Oh, it was nobody,” he says. “Some other human woman, rather past her prime. It looks as if the good admiral really is simply on a girl’s night out.”

“I’m sure you’re happy to take her money,” someone else offers.

Abasos nods. “Now,” he says, “how about we get down to business? Right under her pointy nose, as it were?”

There’s a chorus of sniggering agreement, and the group finally start talking about something which isn’t fathier racing.

“It’s all set to go, isn’t it?” says one of them – Shiny Suit, most likely, although it’s hard to tell.

“Don’t you fret, Lansham,” says the Abasos, slapping the first speaker on the back. “Fifty barrels of finest Corellian brandy, right underneath our feet, in my climate-conditioned cellars. Avoids any chance of spoilage, you understand. Ready to ship out the moment our disreputable friends in orbit give the word.”

“Hey, none of that, now. Those Huttese are respectable businessmen, I’ll have you know.” That’s the guy leaning against the bar, grinning.

This is all a game to most of them, Leia can see that much. A chance to do something shocking; to make themselves feel big. Even Brant Abasos in his fake corporal’s gear isn’t a true fanatic. “Big-wigs,” she says, under her breath. “Scum.”

Shiny Suit, though, has drunk one too many shots of lightning-water. “Don’t see why we need some shady Hutts to be middlemen for Corellian brandy,” he says stoutly. “Don’t see why the arsenal needs Corellian brandy in the first place. Keep it here and drink it. Much more sensible. Not as if you don’t sell it at a mark-up.”

Leia can almost hear Abasos rolling his eyes. “As it happens,” he says smoothly, “this brandy is made by our friend Achendrol here. I can assure you, commissioner, it will be very gratefully received.”

“But you make blasters, don’t you, Achendrol?” Shiny Suit pauses, apparently long enough for some gears in his spirit-sogged brain to clank into action. “Oh,” he says. “ _Oh_. Corellian brandy, of _course_. Good one, Achendrol!” He elbows the man next to him in the ribs, and the conversation devolves into a round of backslaps and calls for more lightning-water.

 

“Ugh. Not exactly the brightest Sarlacc in the sand-pit, that one.” Leia swallows back the last of her drink. “Useful, though.”

“They were talking about an arsenal.”

“They were talking enough to get half of them into court, no matter how good their lawyers are.” Leia reaches out and clinks her empty glass against Amilyn’s. “I’m not any happier about the implications than you are, but at least we’ve got enough to get these particular fuckers. Maybe have them spill the goods on people further up the chain.”

“Not bad for one drink’s-worth of work,” Amilyn admits. “You always have brought me luck, Leia. _You're_ not like a spaceship. You're like a perfect alignment of the stars.”

“Now, that,” says Leia, “is a line which probably does work pretty well on all the girls.”

Amilyn hitches one shoulder in an elegant, spaceship-worthy shrug. “Actually,” she says, “they tend to think it’s cheesy.”

“More fool them.” Leia reaches out; traces one finger along the curve of Amilyn’s cheek, across her lips. “Thank you for calling me out here,” she says softly. “I needed to see this.”

“And you needed cheering up.”

Leia nods. “He knew,” she said quietly. “Or he guessed. About my father. And the information’s still sitting right here on his network.”

“Well, we can do something about that second part, at least.”A smile flickers across Amilyn’s face, sharp and wicked. “Did you know,” she says delicately, “that exposure of mature bubble-plants to selendro-gas results in quite a dramatic reaction?”

“You mean they blow the fuck up? I can’t say I did.” Leia looks Amilyn up and down, her gaze resting at last on the milkstones in her hair. Now that she’s looking closely, she can tell they aren’t really milkstones at all. Presumably, they’re orbs of pressurised selendro-gas; the kind of thing only a fool or a daredevil would carry around outside of a protective shield. But then, Leia’s always had a bit of a weak spot for daredevils. “You planned this,” she says. “You knew about the weapons shipment all along.”

“I suspected. Though I certainly had no idea that our intrepid bar-owner had been looking into your family history. There’s no chance he’ll remember on his own?”

Leia shakes her head. “Almost impossible. Luke always said I had a talent for the Mind Trick.”

“You don’t say.” Amilyn raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t use it,” Leia says quickly. “In my work. I never use it.”

“Of course you don’t.” Amilyn clasps her hand, although her voice is, for a moment, all calculation. “It wouldn’t do to come to rely on it, would it now?”

“Exactly.” For a moment, Leia is filled with a giddy sense of joy. Amilyn understands her. She _sees_ her, just the way she is.

Amilyn takes a last sedate sip of her ice-wine, then hits Leia again with that devastating grin. “My troops will be here momentarily to take those idiots into custody,” she says. “They’ll evacuate the bar and the surrounding area, of course.”

“Of course. And then … a regrettable accident?”

“Most regrettable.” Amilyn lifts the circlet of orbs off her head, and slips it gently deep inside the nearest bubble-plant. Even up close, it’s all but invisible. “It’s remote activated,” she explains. “I’m afraid I had hoped to offer you another drink, but as things stand –”

“As things stand, I know perfectly well your personal ship is right outside,” says Leia, “because that’s how we came here. I suggest we hover overhead, and watch the view.” She smiles. “You’ll let me push the button, I hope?”

“Of course I will.” Amilyn smiles back at her, sly and fond. “I thought you might need to blow something up.”

“Force.” Leia feels a shudder of desire run through her, slick and hot. “Amilyn,” she says, “I give up. You _definitely_ have all the best lines.”

 

 


End file.
